Thanks to everyone who showed up to our Saturday Aug 20 sale….and it was a full house indeed!
We had approx. 150 register again, and finally sold 700 lots! We were running in two rings for part of the evening and the sale finished just a couple of minutes before midnight. It is important I finish the sales before the clock strikes twelve…that way I avoid paying overtime! Actually I am just kidding…I never pay overtime.
I knew we had a lot of merchandise in the hall for this one, but there has been so much coming in lately, that I have a serious backlog of merchandise to contend with. The September sale is pretty well full, so I had to do whatever I could to clean up the backlog in this sale. I am still backlogged, but this time I made some inroads.
It was a noisy, high energy sale for the most part, and I have to admit I like it that way. We have new auction goers to every sale, and I sometimes think it can be a little overwhelming for someone new to our auctions…but they seemed to manage!
One very nice lady did a lot of buying. She showed up with a small u-haul trailer…filled it to the top…and then told me this was her first auction! She came well prepared and got some good deals, so I am hoping she will become a regular!
As is the norm, prices were all over the board. We sold a great school house bell for $775 and an incredible silver plate tea set for $700…yet a very nice two piece flat to wall cupboard sold for $300, and another very nice ash two piece sideboard with mirror sold for a mere $225. Primitives and country pieces were overall strong in price, but the refinished parlour tables seemed low to me. That is just the nature of the business right now…it is unpredictable from month to month…auction to auction.
However, I have been very pleased with the response to our Saturday night auctions. Summer sales can drop off in attendance if you stick to doing Saturday daytime sales, but we solved that problem by moving to Saturday nights.
Starting Sept 24 we will be going back to Saturday daytime sales. I think the timing is different come September, and once again daytime sales seem right to me. However, we did have a good time with the Saturday night auctions (and singles night in Pottageville), and I look forward to doing it again next summer!
As I mentioned, we sold a great silver plate tea set for $700…the best set we have ever had. However, when the consignor sent me a picture of the set, I initially turned it down! In the picture it looked like a fairly recent, inexpensive set. I told her we did not do well with that type of set, but she then told me it was over 50 years old, so I decided to have a look at it in person. I realized I was wrong when I actually saw the tea set! So even though photos are very helpful for me when it comes to accepting or declining consignments, they still can be misleading.
Getting ready now for a busy fall auction schedule. After the paperwork is done this week I start with the pickups for the Sept 24 auction. I have almost the complete antique contents of a Bradford home to pick up, plus many other consignments, so it is going to be another busy month!
Just one more thing before I go. Lately I have been doing video presentations of the auctions and my auction business. They are fun for me to do, and I think I am getting the hang of putting them together, so if you have a chance you can check out my latest one by clicking here.
That’s it for now…have fun on the auction trail!
Rob
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